Finding a way to express yourself and your feelings productively is necessary to remain sane, especially as a young adult. Whether you are in college, working full time, or barely doing anything at all, the transition into adulthood is cruel. We are faced with so many stressors that we never knew even existed before. That's why finding a way to deal with the stress is important. However, finding something you are passionate about in life is something that so many people take for granted. It isn't easy to find that thing that not only creates an outlet for emotions as well as being enjoyable.
Within the past few months, the words "busy" and "stressful" would be understatements to describe my life. Although the stresses I've been dealing with are not out of the ordinary for the common nineteen year old, it's been difficult for me to keep up with the world around me.
Exercise is the form of stress relief that so many people preach about. I'd have to agree with these people, in saying that physical exertion is an awesome way to put your mind to rest while simultaneously bettering yourself. However, the past few weeks haven't only been trying on my mind, but also my body. Getting to the gym with such a busy schedule and having the energy to force myself into exercise has been next to impossible. It seems that when I do have the time, I don't have the strength, and vice versa.
That being said, I've always considered writing to be my number one form of self expression and stress relief. Lately, however, even that has been a struggle. I have been slacking on writing for Odyssey because focusing my thoughts into one single topic has been insurmountable. Several drafts remain on my computer hard drive that I may or may not ever revisit. Only recently have I realized that writing doesn't need to be one coherent narrative, and I learned that in my Introduction to Creative Writing course when I was introduced to poetry.
I always pictured myself as a non-fiction writer. If I was forced to write fiction, I figured I would like to write a novel. Never had I ever considered poetry as a form of writing I would be interested in but it has quickly become my favorite. This is were I learned lesson number one: try the things you have no interest in. Put yourself in the picture that you've never painted yourself in. An important person in my life recently told me, "So what if it's awkward? Awkward doesn't mean bad, awkward just means awkward." Writing poetry was nothing short of awkward for me at the beginning. But working through the awkwardness has been incredibly rewarding.
Lesson number two is this: give yourself a chance. When change happens in our lives, we are quick to put ourselves down and assume things about our behavior. As I've learned recently in a social psychology class, we as humans are awful at predicting our behavior before it happens, but great at explaining our behaviors after we perform them. In other words, we are confident that we know how we will react to a stimuli, but when we react differently than expected, we are good at making an excuse for the reaction. By giving yourself a chance, you give yourself space to react however you want to react to a situation. Quit trying to tell yourself how awful things are going to be and how bad things are going to turn out before they even happen. Just give yourself a chance.
I gave myself a chance with poetry and it has consumed me in the best way possible. I have been fortunate enough to be introduced to poetry by a poet himself. He has given me the ability to hear other poets speak and hear a variety of styles and topics that I never thought I would've fallen in love with. Try the things that seem awkward to you and find a way to better yourself. Do this for your own well-being, and your mind and body will thank you.
